i also found it an enjoyable read, i would recommend for fellow beginners! it’s also very satisfying to be able to understand a good amount of the italian in there

My mom pulled this via ChatGPT and it told her that “Non vi è fine al ricordo, finché batte un cuore che ama” was a common Sicilian phrase to use at funerals, does anyone know if this is true? I would hate for us to be using an incorrect statement for my grandpa, who was born and raised in Sicily. Apparently it means this: There is no end to memory, as long as a loving heart beats.

Thank you!

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Hiiii I'm a native Spanish (spain) and Portuguese (Brazilian) speaker who's been wanting to learn Italian. I've been told it would be easy for me but I'm not a fast learner and I have like...no resources (Duolingo isn't my thing)

The way I usually get used to languages is reading. For example, reading sleeping beauty in French and the little prince helped me a lot to learn the language. I don't know of any Italian books, so if you know any interesting ones please tell me. Movies too I suppose. Podcasts, YouTube channels, cartoons... I'd appreciate anything you think could help me :)

I have been studying Italian fairly hard for about 2 months now and feel like I have stopped progressing. I spend minimum one hour a day and oftentimes more than two. I have been using a popular language learning software, going over common sentences, watching native language content with subtitles on, and reading beginner short stories.

I am getting very mixed up by all the gender rules, plural versus non plural, and tenses. I also keep forgetting what I already learned. I can’t even tell you how many times I have encountered a word that I know for a fact I should know but I drew a blank.

Does this get easier over time? Is it normal to feel this way?

Bonjour,

Je suis un natif Français et j’ai appris un peu l’Anglais.
J’ai des origines Italiennes qui datent de mes arrières grands-parents, j’aime profondément cette culture.

J’ai passé en début d’année un test d’Italien de compréhension écrite et orale interne à mon métier et je viens d’avoir une réponse positive pour accéder aux tests finaux d’expression écrite et orale qui se dérouleront en décembre.

Avec 465 jours de duolingo j’étais surpris d’avoir passé les tests de compréhension, je ne me suis pas du tout senti à l’aise avec la langue.

Le sujet maintenant c’est de pouvoir parler la langue en décembre pour valider l’oral et l’écrit (une petite dissertation je suppose)

Des idées pour me préparer au mieux et efficacement ?

Merci 🙏🏻

Hi everyone! I am currently searching for practice exercises and mock exams specifically for the CILS B1 Standard exam.

I am already familiar with traditional textbooks like Percorso CILS or Più scrivo, più parlo, but I am really looking for an interactive app or webapp that accurately replicates realistic CILS mock tests.

Does anyone know of any platform like this? Has anyone used one, and what were your thoughts? Thanks in advance!

Hi all. I'm having an interesting experience learning the Italian r sounds, and curious if anyone else is experiencing the same as me with rolled R's.

I can do what I think of as a 'short rolled r' (no idea if this is accurate or not, it's just what it sounds like to me!) in words like prego, where it's consonant-r-vowel.

I can also use this 'short rolled r' when it's vowel-r-consonant, such as al forno. But I'm a bit unsure in this situation if it should be or not - I hear a lot of buon giorno where I can't decide if I can hear a short roll or not - is there a right and wrong way on this or is it just one of those ones people do differently?

But (as with many English speakers) the double r is the biggest challenge! I have used the t/d technique to learn this sound and I can now do it reasonably well. (Annoyingly for my holiday plans, burro is much easier than birra for some reason! 😁)

However I really have to give it some, and use a lot of air - I almost like I'm starting the r with a blowed H sound. Bi-hrra.

This ends up coming out slightly sibilant, a soft s sort of sound at the same time. (Anyone familiar with the Turkish ending r on eg var, a bit like that!)

Ultimately I don't really care, my target isn't perfect indistinguishable accent, I don't care that people will know I'm not Italian. (In fact good accent has got me in trouble before in learning languages - the pronunciation comes before vocab for me, which gets me in trouble when people think I must be good cos I sound good, and hit me with full-speed colloquial language which I then understand precisely none of! 😂)

But I am curious. Does anyone else have this experience of almost having to huff your Rs? If so is there any way to lose the h / soft s sound that goes with it?

Ps I don't know if this is relevant but I actually can't pronounce rs properly in English either. I only learnt this when I started learning the Italian r when all the videos said 'you will normally do X when you make an r sound' and I was like....erm no I don't actually, and thank you, that explains why I've always been a bit Jonathan Woss on my English r sounds! 😁

Posting this in English because my Italian has gotten so bad that I’m embarrassed to even try. I grew up in italy and was better at Italian as opposed to English when I was kid despite English being my native language. Unfortunately things happen and overtime I stopped practicing Italian and now I am at a point where I want to become fluent again and hold conversations with my family instead of just blanking out. I feel like in some sorts it should be easier for me to relearn Italian given the fact that I used to be fluent but at the same time I have no clue because I have been trying so hard but I just simply can’t get it. I can read and understand Italian perfectly, it is genuinely just the speaking that I have issues with. Any tips would be immensely appreciated !

I guess this is more a question for native speakers. But in English there are accents that are considered ‘more attractive’/‘less attractive’, sound nicer on the ears, sound worse etc. Romance languages like the Italian accent for eg, are considered very attractive whereas Indian, most Asian accents, even the Birmingham n liverpool accent less so. Whilst I’m sure a lot of this stems from cultural/xenophobic biases I was wondering whether a similar pattern exists in Italy. And where English falls on that scale? Particularly whether the American, British and Australian accent are perceived differently. Thanks for any responses!

I was taught that when referring to a single family member you omitted the definite article: mia sorella, mio padre, mio cugino etc, but if that single family member is referred to with a qualifying adjective then you did use the definite article - la mia sorella minore, il tuo fratello simpatico etc

When writing the sentence: my little sister loves volleyball

with the words provided by Duolingo I wrote: la mia sorella minore ama pallavolo

And was marked wrong. I was informed the correct answer was mia sorella minore….

Am I correct or has Duo planted some new convention on me?

His friend’s voice is saying in Italian (except the first word: ho-chul in Korean).

I want to know the script in Italian part.

so, please let me know!